Tag Archives: Unity

On a recent retreat, Lorne Hoff spoke of the role of the intellect in awakening. I thought the point valuable to share. When we first wake up, there is often an unknowing. We step into a place we’ve never been in many lifetimes. It is Self that wakes up to itself, well beyond the mind and any concepts we may have about it. We shift from experiencing ourselves as an egoic me to infinite and eternal being. It is like nothing changes and everything changes, both. It feels perfectly ordinary and normal. We can be surprised how simple the shift … Continue Reading… →

I quite enjoy Adyashanti’s pragmatic take on the awakening process. I’ve written various articles on his books like Falling into Grace or The End of Your World. Last fall, I posted a conversation Rick Archer had between Adya and Susanne Marie on the post-Self shift. Prior to the Science and Nonduality conference last month, Rick spent time with Michael and Adya, followed by a 3 hour recorded conversation. They explored a wide range of topics including how you can get stuck post-awakening in emotional avoidance, detachment, or meaninglessness. The latter topic came up several times, exploring how to recognize deeper … Continue Reading… →

Adyashanti and Susanne Marie in conversation with Rick Archer. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for some months. Join Susanne Marie and Adyashanti in an exploration with Rick Archer about an often misunderstood subject. Beyond the traditional landing places that mind creates (commonly discussed in non-dual circles), lies an indescribable landscape of living as pure, direct experiencing. Prior to this opening, the habitual subjective filter creates a veil of separation of which one is not even aware. This is true even within expanded, unified states of consciousness. Once this filter falls away, life is experienced directly, as itself, without … Continue Reading… →

Brahman itself is totality, not diversity. The field of diversity is also Brahman but in the sense that diversity is just an appearance of totality. The title of this article is a reference to the Brahman stage. Over time, it’s become clear how different the shift is for various people. Each person experiences the stages in their own way. But by the time you get to late Unity, the variations in how the process has unfolded, the dominant laws, and dharma make an increasing difference in the subjective features and emphasis of the experience. I’ve seen several cases where someone … Continue Reading… →

I’ve talked some of how enlightenment is not a goal in itself but rather a platform for living. Here this is put another way. The unitive state is not an end in itself; rather its purpose is authentic human existence, for it is only by living a mature existence that we can make our way to a far greater end or destiny. We do not know this great end ahead of time (though we may have glimpses of it), nor can we come upon it until the unitive condition has been exhaustively exercised and tested in the marketplace… Having finally … Continue Reading… →

When I previously wrote an article on the Mahavakya (great sayings), I used an old understanding, informed by a 70’s talk by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (before he was differentiating the Brahman stage) and common English translations. It’s time for an update. The common translations are “I am That, Thou art That, All this is That, and That alone is.” These are lovely and sound both like realizations of Unity Consciousness and of the stages to it – if we take That to be equivalent to Atman. Or as Brahman where Atman = Brahman. But while Atman does eventually come to … Continue Reading… →

Over on Managing the Chakras, a point came up in Comments that I thought worth emphasizing. I’ve written several similar articles about how the devata manage the flow of energy that support our “personal” physiology. How they work together, in relationship. This same process is gradually moving forward into the world. As more people embody their unique blend of laws of nature and perspective of the whole, they’ll begin to move into complementary groupings that amplify their blend. In The Second Stage, I talked about new laws of nature being awoken, then joining with existing ones in revived synergies. But … Continue Reading… →

The recent Surrender article brought out a key point which is worth amplifying. Again, from the second to last sentence of the ancient Rig Veda: “By virtue of unitedness and by means of that which remains to be united, I perform action to generate wholeness of life.” This is such a beautiful description of the process of living enlightenment. Keep in mind that from well-developed Unity, a person experiences themselves as cosmic, even on the level of the body. The cosmic includes all beings, including both the enlightened and those that remain to be so. Unity is a process of … Continue Reading… →

In the process of shifting from being a me, identified with a body-mind, and becoming Atman, the cosmic Self, there is a series of stages. I typically describe this in terms of stages of development in consciousness. Shifts in how consciousness is self-aware locally. Adi Shankara described this process in a slightly different way that I’ve mentioned here several times. That is in terms of the dominant guna of our body-mind. This is more about the Shakti or feminine side of the process, unlike the more masculine consciousness-based approach. More of an emphasis on embodiment. As described before, when Tamas … Continue Reading… →

aka higher states of consciousness or stages thereof One of the most popular articles on this blog over the years has been on states of consciousness. First as an outline of the 7 states of consciousness model, then a newer version, consolidating the many updates to the prior article. This article reframes that model a little further to better reflect how people are experiencing the process. I’ve begun making references to this model, so I thought it time for a new Key Post. I’m also working on an book that goes into this in much more detail. Psychology has begun … Continue Reading… →